From 1942 to 1945, Joseph Stalin disappeared from Soviet visual culture. There was, after all, an inherent risk in linking the image of Stalin with the calls to defend, protect and liberate that... Read more

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its satellite state of Czechoslovakia were entwined in a far-reaching "friendship project," which significantly impacted cultural and social life in both... Read more

Religion, it has been argued, is essential to the construction of modernity: by dictating the place and nature of acceptable religious behaviour the modern state displays and reaffirms its own power... Read more

In Cold War Europe, international film festivals represented much more than a simple artistic event for the USSR. Generally, the Soviets understood festivals as a political and ideological... Read more

When Russians attempted to depict the demobilisation of the Red Army after the Great Patriotic War they almost always turned to the photographs of returning veterans taken in the summer of 1945. The... Read more